At Galatians 1:15-2:10 (NIV) the apostle Paul gave chronological information regarding his life. He wrote:

1:15But when God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, was pleased ¹⁶to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not consult any man, ¹⁷nor did I go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went immediately into Arabia and later returned to Damascus.

18Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Peter and stayed with him fifteen days. ¹⁹I saw none of the other apostles-only James, the Lord�s brother. ²⁰I assure you before God that what I am writing you is no lie.

21Later I went to Syria and Cilicia. ²²I was personally unknown to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. ²³They only heard the report: "The man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy." ²⁴And they praised God because of me.

2:1Fourteen years later I went up again to Jerusalem, this time with Barnabas. I took Titus along also. ²I went in response to a revelation and set before them the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles. But I did this privately to those who seemed to be leaders, for fear that I was running or had run my race in vain. ³Yet not even Titus, who was with me, was compelled to be circumcised, even though he was a Greek. ⁴This matter arose because some false brothers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves. ⁵We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might remain with you. ⁶As for those who seemed to be important-whatever they were makes no difference to me; God does not judge by external appearance-those men added nothing to my message. ⁷On the contrary, they saw that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the Gentiles, just as Peter had been to the Jews. ⁸For God, who was at work in the ministry of Peter as an apostle to the Jews, was also at work in my ministry as an apostle to the Gentiles. ⁹James, Peter and John, those reputed to be pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the Jews. ¹⁰All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do.

This passage raises three questions.

1. Does Paul begin counting the three years and the fourteen years from the date of his conversion or from his first visit to Jerusalem following his conversion?

2. Does Paul consider the three years and the fourteen years as successive or concurrent periods?

3. Does Paul use some kind of unique "Jewish inclusive reckoning" in referring to the three years and the fourteen years thereby shortening them (wherein parts of years are reckoned as full years)?

These were in part addressed by Paul J. Achtemeier in his analysis of early Pauline chronological problems. Achtemeier holds that the epistle to the Galatians followed the events of Acts 15 and was a result of it. Nevertheless as to the three-year (Galatians 1:18) and the fourteen-year (Galatians 2:1) periods he wrote:

It is not clear whether the point of origin for the fourteen years was the conversion of the first visit to Jerusalem. Taking into account the inclusive reckoning current in Paul�s time, the visit was thirteen years after either his conversion or his earlier visit to Jerusalem. The three years and fourteen years are to be reckoned as coinciding, not successive-as both commence at Paul�s conversion rather than the fourteen years of Galatians 2:1 being calculated from Paul�s first visit. (Achtemeier 1987:22.)

Arguing that each of the two periods began at Paul�s conversion, while plausible, is not a point generally contended by most scholars. The majority follow the rationale of linking the two periods as successive, so that the full period is understood as three plus fourteen for a total of seventeen years, less two years, presuming so-called Jewish inclusive reckoning in determining days also applies to construing years, for a revised total of fifteen years. Inclusive reckoning refers to a rule requiring that when the word day appears by itself it can be a full day or a partial day, but whether this rule applies to a year remains to be seen. As to linking the two periods as successive. John A. T. Robinson wrote:

No one, I believe, would begin by supposing otherwise, though once the other way of taking it is suggested there is no way of disproving it. (Robinson 1976:37.)

The other way to which Robinson referred makes these two periods coincide for the first three years and not run successively. By assigning an early date for the Acts 15 proceeding, CE 48, and subtracting the traditional fifteen years the date of Paul�s conversion yields CE 33 or three years after a CE 30 crucifixion.

In the alternative, assigning a late 49 or early 50 date, perhaps in December or January, for the Acts 15 proceeding and subtracting fourteen years yields a plausible conversion date for Paul in CE 35 which would allow a CE 30 or 31 date for the Crucifixion. While it appears to allow time for a CE 33 alternative date for the Crucifixion it would require the events between the Crucifixion and Paul�s conversion to be artificially manipulated and compressed.

Robinson�s opinion was that:

Though we cannot be absolutely certain, it looks as if the most likely date for the crucifixion is 30�the only serious alternative astronomically and calendrically being 33. (Robinson 1976:37.)

Why so? Robinson�s paradigm requires a Friday crucifixion and a Sunday morning resurrection. An apparent misunderstanding of the rules pertaining to the intercalary years, resulting from the utilization of the calculated Babylonian calendar by many scholars, has led to the erroneous date for the Passover in the year of the Crucifixion. The Babylonian calendar wrongly places Nisan 14 (Passover) on Friday, April 7, 30, when according to the Rabbinic Calendar, on both the Old Cycle and the New Cycle, it was Wednesday (technically, Nisan 14 began Tuesday night at sunset and lasted until sunset Wednesday night as Jews began their days at sunset not midnight), April 5 (see CE 22-40 [Old Cycle] and CE 22-40 [New Cycle]). The Feast of Passover, Nisan 14  was on a Friday in CE 33, a common year, in both old cycle and new cycle determinations on the Rabbinic Calendar. However, CE 31 was a leap year and the Rabbinic Calendar on the old cycle places Nisan 14 on Wednesday (beginning the previous Tuesday night) and on the new cycle places it on Monday (beginning the previous Sunday night).

In any event, while Robinson believed no one would seriously argue the coinciding of the two periods, Richard N. Longenecker in the Galatians volume of the Word Biblical Commentary did just that. In establishing his argument he stated:

In order to accommodate the three-year and fourteen year time spans of Gal 1:18 and 2:1 within the limits imposed for Jesus� crucifixion and Paul�s initial Corinthian ministry, and still hold to the identification of Gal 2:1-10 with Acts 11:27-30, at least two of the following three assumptions must be made:

1. That the three years and fourteen years are concurrent, not consecutive�that is, that both are to be measured from Paul�s conversion, and not that the fourteen years of Gal. 2:1 are to be counted from Paul�s first visit;

2. That Paul in Gal. 1:18 and in 2:1 is using a method of computation wherein parts of years are counted as full years; and

3. That Jesus crucifixion took place in A.D. 30, with Paul�s conversion two or three years afterwards. (Longenecker 1990:lxxxiii.)

In his analysis Longenecker held that the writing of Galatians occurred before  the Acts 15 "Council" at Jerusalem but he erroneously identified Acts 11:25-26, 30 with Galatians 2:1-10 Longenecker 1990:lxxxviii, 46). There are four misplaced suppositions inherent in his logic for doing so.

First, as in Robinson, because of tradition Longenecker presumed that the year of the Crucifixion must have Nisan 14 occurring on Friday in order to rationalize a Friday crucifixion and a Sunday morning resurrection. The weight of the evidence is that the Crucifixion occurred on a Wednesday not a Friday (see The Crucifixion).

Second, that it is necessary to equate the events of Galatians 2:1-10 with Acts 11:25-30. There is, however, no need to square these two events. Acts is silent about the private visit to Jerusalem detailed in  Galatians 2:1-10 as it was either not germane to the writer of Acts or he simply did not know about the visit when he wrote. Absence of evidence in Acts is not evidence of absence in the travels of the apostle Paul.

Third, that the Babylonian calendar is to be preferred over the Rabbinic calendar. In scholarly literature the Babylonian Calculated Calendar is a standard utilized by many Protestant scholars in deciphering the biblical chronology of the New Testament.

Fourth, that the method of calculation in Galatians 1:18 and 2:1 was inclusive reckoning wherein parts of years are counted as full years. Rabbi Eleazar ben Azariah, tenth in the descent from Ezra, said that "A day and a night are an Onah ['a portion of time'] and the portion of an Onah is as the whole of it" [Jerusalem Talmud, Shabbath 9.3 and Babylonian Talmud, Pesahim 4a]. The rabbi's statement conveys to his readers that part of a day can count as a day. So, when the word day appears by itself it can be a full day or a partial day reckoned as a compete day. There is no evidence that this reasoning can be extrapolated to weeks, months, cycles, or years.

In approximating the Julian date of Nisan 14 in the CE 27-34 period, the progenitors of the Rabbinic Calendar (the Hillel II calendar) were closest in tradition and time to the Temple authority responsible for fixing the festival calendar. Nevertheless, most scholars addressing the year of the Crucifixion date the Crucifixion to CE 30 or 33. Perhaps for Protestants, who usually opt for CE 30, the main reason for this is that the Babylonian Calculated Calendar (Parker and Dubberstein 1942, Finegan 1998:363), places Nisan 14 on Friday and on no other Friday in the period CE 27-34. Moreover, a CE 30 Crucifixion allows a period of exactly 40 years from the Crucifixion to the destruction of Jerusalem in CE 70. This is significant to some as they argue that a generation in biblical context was 40 years and that the sense of the events foretold by Jesus in Matthew 23:36 were to happen to "this generation" and that would require a CE 30 Crucifixion (Martin 358-370). The Rabbinic Calendar (the Hillel II calendar) has Nisan 14 on Friday in CE 33 which many Roman Catholic writers hold is the year of the Crucifixion.

The epistle to the Galatians records a visit by the apostle Paul to Jerusalem which cannot be conveniently correlated with any of the accounts in Acts of the Apostles. This was a visit of Paul, Barnabas, and Titus to Jerusalem to confer with the apostles and elders of the mother church. It was a private meeting occurring a few months prior to the CE 49/50 public hearing before an assembly of the apostles and elders on the issue of the applicability of circumcision and the law of Moses on Gentiles (Galatians 2:1-10).

Acts is generally a secondary source for establishing a Pauline chronology. It is a primary source for the periods of Acts 16:10-40 and Acts 19:23-28:3, as required by Luke�s use of the second person singular tense "we" as opposed to the plural "they."

Where ambiguity lies, Acts has to be taken as a principal authority. Acts provides an account of the remaining five of the six known Jerusalem visits by Paul as a Judeo-Christian. These may be referred to as the conversion visit (Acts 9:26-30), the famine visit (Acts 11:27-30), the conference before the assembly of apostles and elders at Jerusalem (Acts 15:1-30), the hasty visit (Acts 18:22), and the collection visit (Acts 21:15-18). By placing the events of Galatians 1-2 and Acts 15 into their first-century historical context one may discern their chronological implication. The primary benchmark  in establishing early Pauline chronology is the Procouncilship of Gallio. Gallio served for a short time, from about July 1, 51 C.E. to July 1, 52 C.E., as proconsul of Achaia (Charlesworth 1971:682). The events recorded in Acts of the Apostles from the hearing before James to Paul�s appearance before Gallio contain so much detail that the date of the Acts 15 proceeding can be known with specificity.

Taking into account the Jewish character of the early church permits the development of a realistic Pauline chronology, utilizing Galatians and Acts, based upon Judeo-Christian Sabbath observance and festival celebration together with their reliance on first-century Hebrew calendar rules. The result is the harmonization of the events recorded in Galatians and Acts of the Apostles without resorting to the distortions introduced by inclusive reckoning.

Page last edited: 04/13/06 07:40 PM

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